Mother Holle a personalised book with your child as the hero

Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters. One was her stepdaughter, and she was hard-working and kind. The other was her own daughter, and she was lazy and liked nothing better than lying in the shade. The widow loved her own daughter best, so it was the stepdaughter who did all the work of the house.

Every day the hard-working girl had to sit by the well in the lane and spin. She spun and spun from morning till evening, until her fingers were tired and sore, while her stepmother called, "More, more! The basket isn't empty yet!" and her stepsister lay on the bench under the tree and yawned.

One day, as she leaned over the well to rinse her spindle, it slipped out of her tired fingers and fell, plop, into the water, and sank out of sight.

The girl ran crying to her stepmother. "You let it fall," said the stepmother sternly, "so you will have to find it again."

So the girl went back to the well and knelt on its edge and looked down into the water. She looked and looked. And as she looked, the water began to shimmer and glow, softly, like a lamp in a window, and the girl felt herself drifting gently down into the light, as if she were falling asleep.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying in a beautiful meadow where the sun was shining and thousands of flowers were growing. Butterflies danced over the grass, and a little path wound away across the meadow.

The girl followed the path, and soon she came to a big brick oven full of bread. And the bread called out to her: "Take us out, take us out, or we will burn! We have been baked long enough!"

So the girl took the long wooden bread peel and lifted the loaves out, one after another, golden and warm, and set them in a row on the grass to cool.

Then she walked on, and she came to a tree full of apples. And the tree called out to her: "Shake me, shake me! My apples are all ripe!"

So the girl took hold of the tree and shook it, and the apples came tumbling down like rain until there was not one left on the branches. Then she gathered them all up into a neat heap and walked on.

At last she came to a little house. An old woman was looking out of the window, and she had very big teeth. The girl was frightened and wanted to run away. But the old woman called out kindly, "Don't be afraid, my dear. Stay here with me. If you help me nicely in the house, you will be happy here. Only you must take good care to make my bed well, and shake it hard, so that the feathers fly. For when the feathers fly, it snows in the world. I am Mother Holle."

The old woman spoke so kindly that the girl took heart and went in, and she stayed to help. She did everything just as Mother Holle liked it. Every morning she opened the window and shook out the big white feather bed so hard that the feathers flew out like snowflakes, and far, far below, in the world, it snowed. And Mother Holle was always good to her. She never spoke a cross word, and every day there was roast and stew and good things to eat.

The girl lived with Mother Holle for a long time. But after a while she began to feel sad, and at first she did not know why. Then she understood: she was homesick. Although she was a thousand times better off here, she still longed to go home.

At last she said, "Mother Holle, I have been so happy here, but I would like to go home to my own people now."

"I am glad that you want to go home," said Mother Holle, "and because you have helped me so faithfully, I will take you there myself."

She took the girl by the hand and led her to a great gate. The gate swung open, and just as the girl was standing underneath it, a shower of gold came raining down, and all the gold stuck to her, so that she was covered in it from head to toe.

"That is for you, because you worked so hard," said Mother Holle. And she gave her back the spindle that had fallen into the well.

Then the gate closed, and the girl found herself back in the world, not far from her stepmother's house. As she came into the yard, the cockerel was sitting on the edge of the well, and he crowed:

"Cock-a-doodle-doo! Our golden girl's come back to you!"

The stepmother and the stepsister came running out, and when they saw her covered in gold, they gave her a warm welcome and wanted to hear everything. So the girl told them all that had happened.

When the stepmother heard how she had come by all that gold, she wanted her own lazy daughter to have the same good luck. So the lazy stepsister sat down by the well to spin, and she dropped the spindle in on purpose, and went down after it.

She woke in the same beautiful meadow and walked along the same path. When she came to the oven, the bread called out, "Take us out, take us out, or we will burn!" But the lazy stepsister yawned and said, "I don't want to get my hands dirty," and walked on. When she came to the apple tree, it called, "Shake me, shake me! My apples are all ripe!" But she said, "One might fall on my head," and walked on.

When she came to Mother Holle's house, she was not afraid of the big teeth, because she had heard all about them, and she went straight in. On the first day she worked a little, because she was thinking of the gold. On the second day she worked less. On the third day she would not even get up in the morning. And she never shook the feather bed so that the feathers flew.

Mother Holle soon had enough of that, and she told her it was time to go home. The lazy stepsister was delighted, for now, she thought, the gold would come. Mother Holle led her to the great gate. But as she stood underneath it, instead of gold, a big kettle full of sticky black pitch tipped over her.

"That is the reward for your work," said Mother Holle, and shut the gate.

So the lazy stepsister came home sticky with pitch from top to toe, and when the cockerel on the well saw her, he crowed:

"Cock-a-doodle-doo! Our sticky girl's come back to you!"

The pitch would not come off, however much she rubbed. Then the hard-working girl fetched a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. "Come on," she said kindly. "We'll scrub it off together." They scrubbed, and they scrubbed, and a little came off. And from that day on, every time the lazy sister helped with the work, a little more came off, until at last there was none left at all. By then she had learned to help as gladly as her sister, and the cockerel on the well had nothing left to crow about.